Writing Excellence

 Growing up, The Outer Limits captured my fancy and quickly developed into a favorite television program.  I loved the beginning where the announcer stated, "We will control all transmissions.  We control the vertical, the horizontal...".  This intro launched the viewer's imagination.  Prepared for anything, we received fantastic fictions, imaginations and fantasies.

This caused me to look at writing.  Many writers 'settle' for much less than they can achieve.  Many writers balk at the sometimes daunting task of taking their writing to levels they could never have imagined.  Great writing is not bred.  A writer is not 'born with writing talent'.

Depth, brilliance, fresh writing, stunning prose is developed.  The higher levels of writing are attained.  These levels do not sit dormant, reserved only for the elite.  Top notch writing relates to foul shots.  Tee shots.  Curve balls.  Historical knowledge.  Science.  Practice, study and determination gets you there.

I watched some basketball highlights this Thanksgiving Day and realization hit me like a Shaquile O'Neal elbow - why can I hit 85% of my foul shots and three quarters of the NBA cannot?  I'm no tremendous physical specimen.  But I practice my foul shots.

What stops me from writing stories and books that would knock the reading glasses off an audience?  Me.  Sure, publication, marketing, promoting etc, come into play, but an audience can be defined in the tens or hundreds or thousands. 

The gut feeling struck me that writers get lazy like everyone else.  Writers get complacent or satisfied with where their prose rests and refuse to tool it anymore.  Margie Lawson put on a one day workshop on deep editing to ramp up your character's emotions and I walked out stunned.  Working more deeply on a manuscript can shoot its impact up like a NASA rocket.

We control the depth of our characters.  We control whether we use the verb 'to be' or opt for something much more powerful or descriptive.  We control whether we shoot down our adverb overuse like an arcade shooting gallery.  We control how many rhetorical devices we learn to use.  We control concrete nouns versus the plain vanilla nondescript people places and things that dominate lazy writing.

The key factor becomes motivation.  Will you as a writer forge a study regimen that takes you from mediocre to nova.  The only force stopping you whispers from your heart.  Your own will makes or breaks dedication to craft.  I know this personally. 

I hear the voices.  "Why bother?  Your stories are strong and you use 'enough' power words."  Listening to those type voices leads to complacency and a false sense of ability.  I'm sure some of us (like me) must work at improving our craft more diligently than others.  Does that matter?  The choice is mediocrity and writing that projectiles off the page.

We not only choose, we control this level of excellence.  Editors can help, but if a writer is reticent to write at a superior level in the first place, good editors will attempt to maintain the writer's voice.

I believe The Outer Limits announcer said at some point, "From the inner mind to ... the outer limits!"  A writer wrote that.  That particular writer understood.  We glean from our inner self the abilities we own and we translate them out to the world.  Most times writers settle for their writer's group or city or state.  Writers should set their sites on the stratosphere and beyond.  Trust and believe, the writer's group, city and state will follow your trail to the heavens.